When a printing device is installed on a host computer or a computer network, a test is typically performed on the printing device to determine if the printing device operates properly. One problem with this type of testing, however, is that there are components other than the printing device itself that could cause a print operation to fail. For example, a printer driver installed on a host computer could have an error in it and cause a print failure even if the printing device is operationally sound. Or, a problem may lie in a host computer operating system. Furthermore, there could be a connection problem between the host computer and the printing device—i.e., a faulty cable, a loose cable connection, etc.—that is causing the failure.
This type of problem is being seen more frequently as printing devices are more commonly connected to computer networks and are shared among several computers. Setting up a printing device in such an environment is significantly more complicated than simply hooking up a printer to a computer. There may be several different ways in which a network printing device may be configured on a network, depending on the type of network, the size of the network, the capacity of the network, etc.
As the number of setup parameters increases, so does the chance that an error will be made in the setup procedure. After setting up a printing device that fails to print, a major hurdle is determining whether the problem lies in the printing device (hardware) or in the configuration (software). Even a local self test on a printing device may not answer this question in the event that there is a hardware problem in the communication channel(s) between the printing device and the network, which a printing device self test will not typically detect.